‘Lucky few’: Chris Minns’ scathing reply to Dominic Perrottet’s NSW budget

The NSW Opposition Leader has accused the government of creating a budget for the “lucky few” while gutting services.

Opposition Leader Chris Minns has laid out his vision for NSW in a scathing budget reply speech in parliament on Thursday.

Mr Minns said the measures in Tuesday’s budget provided for the “lucky few” while ignoring the concerns of the “many who work hard”.

“The Liberals and Nationals really think good economic management means more returns for a powerful few,” Mr Minns said.

“The household budget is bleeding from the rising costs to feed private profits.”

The Labor leader also lashed “foreign-built” public transport mishaps, high road tolls and delayed early childhood education reforms.

Mr Minns said if he were in charge following the state election next March he would deliver immediate help for households, support for local manufacturing and investment in education.

Chris Minns says the budget ignores the concerns of hard workers. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins/Pool

He added there were parts of the budget he backed and would be willing to work with the government on.

“I don’t want us to go down the American path of destructive partisan politics and undermining trust in democracy. We don’t need that here,” Mr Minns said.

He welcomed $743m being spent on palliative care, adding end-of-life care had historically been too low of a priority for both sides of politics.

Mr Minns said Labor supported former premier Gladys Berejiklian during the “darkest days” of the pandemic in the hope of seeing a pay off not present in the state’s current finances.

“Instead, our people face a future of deep uncertainty, of spiralling costs, of slow wage growth – and an ever-growing sense that our economy demands of the many but only delivers for the few,” he said.

Toll relief was one way Mr Minns said he would support working families along with higher pay for essential workers like nurses and teachers who have engaged in strikes over pay disputes.

This would include scrapping the current bargaining system and replacing it with one based on “productivity-based bargaining” whereby pay rises are secured in exchange for measures designed to improve productivity.

He said a state Labor government would support private industry by buying locally.

The decision to manufacturer public transport infrastructure overseas was based on “ideology” and the idea it could be done cheaper overseas, according to Mr Minns.

“You only have to look at the NSW government’s foreign-built disasters – most recently at Sydney Ferries – to see that it’s complete rubbish,” he said.

“I just do not understand why Sydney Metro Northwest used steel rails imported from Spain and why the Sydney Convention Centre was built with steel from China.

“Why wouldn’t we use our own?”

Mr Minns accused the NSW government of creating a budget that put the lucky few first at the expense of everyone else. Picture: AAP Image/Dean Lewins/Pool

He also promised to legislate a ban on the sale of major state assets without the approval of both houses of the NSW parliament.

Plans to build 100 new kindergartens co-located in primary schools was also a key response to the government’s decade-long plan for early childhood education reform.

“By the time the Liberals and Nationals fix kindy, a child born on budget day will be in second grade – and a child born the day the Liberals and Nationals were first elected will have left school completely,” he said.

Mr Minns also committed to developing communities in west and southwest Sydney that are set to account for two-thirds of the state’s growth over next 20 years.

“Families move to the west on promises of infrastructure, schools, hospitals, public transport. All of which seems to mysteriously never appear,” he said.

He noted Blacktown was expected to expand by an additional 200,000 people, Liverpool by 190,000 and Camden by 180,000 compared with just under 1000 in the north shore suburb of Mosman.

“That in itself seems unfair, to not match that with the urgently needed infrastructure after a decade of neglect – that’s not right,” Mr Minns said.

He finished by appealing to voters to make a change after a decade of Liberal and National leadership that could only be achieved by voting against them at the next election.